Fisheries Committee on Oct. 30th, 2024

[Paul Macedo]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I just want to put it on the record that I'm not a chief. Thank you so much. I'm just a communications director with CANDO. What is it that we would need?

We are currently receiving support from the Canadian Coast Guard to develop a pilot project in south Vancouver Island. That's fairly well supported, but it's a small pilot. What we want to do is take the lessons learned and the processes we're developing and amplify and expand them mid-island and up-island and to all of the coasts, including the St. Lawrence, where communities have identified this as an issue and where there is interest not only in applying the lessons and processes but also in looking at food security and also economic development opportunities. We're looking to scale it up.

What we found through the Canadian Coast Guard is that our training and mobilization of first nations is actually moving faster than their internal processes to deal with the results that we're finding. We're having to wait for the Coast Guard and for government to build up and speed up their processes so that they can match the speed at which communities want to move. That's a big issue.

I think training could be involved. One of the issues is safety and security on the boats and on the water and ensuring that those who are participating in the assessment and eventual removal and recovery of these vessels have the proper training and risk assessment involved to keep everyone safe while undertaking some of these tasks.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, Madame Desbiens.

We'll now go to Ms. Barron for six minutes or less, please.

[Lisa Marie Barron, NDP, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses who are here today.

Welcome, Chief Joe. It's nice to hear from you, and from Mr. Macedo.

I'm going to focus my time on Councillor Edwards today. We'll have just enough time to get my questions in before you have to leave, so this worked out just perfectly.

Councillor Edwards, and former chief Edwards, it is always such an honour to work with you and to learn from you. I'm happy that you are here today to be able to share with us some important information about the Snaw-naw-as First Nation and all those who have resided on the nation since time immemorial, of course.

You provided us with some important information. First of all, I wanted to see if you could give us some more information about the oyster and clam farms that you were talking about and the benefit that those farms bring to your community.

[Gordon Edwards]

They are very important to us. We have an economic development group that looks after how we deal with, manage and farm our oysters, Manila clams and butter clams. We want to make sure that there's a supply that can improve our economics on our reserve and raise the level from the priority levels that we have.

They are important in two things. First is economic development, but they're also for our people. In our community, when we have a naming, when we have a death or when there's a memorial, what's provided at those as meals is seafood: oysters, clams, Manila clams—geoducks in general. We go there, we gather that, and we feed people who come to our community to acknowledge a naming or to appear for a memorial.

It's very important to us that there be no contamination of those oyster fields and the clam farming that we have there. It's important to us that we don't have huge oil spills. We've had two scares. One I mentioned earlier about the boat that washed up on the breakwater. Second was DND vessel that released all of this oil, diesel oil or something. It was a huge concern that, should that have drifted to our bay, which is referenced often on maps as Nanoose Bay, it would have been a huge concern, because we would have lost that access.

It's been there for us, as you mentioned, for time immemorial. We've been gathering for as long as I can remember, as long as my mom can remember, as long as my grandfather can remember. They are used in our practices at home, where we can help support and bond with our other family members and with our culture when it comes to longhouses and our burnings. For our elders, when we do a burning at a memorial where we feed them on the other side, seafood is on the table.

As the two previous guests, Mr. Macedo and Chief Joe, have mentioned, it's of huge importance to us economically but also as a personal, spiritual and cultural practice with our community members.

[Lisa Marie Barron, NDP, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

Thank you so much, Councillor Edwards.

You spoke to so many of the things that I wanted you to clarify about the impacts it would have on not just these farms but also on so many other things if they were to be contaminated or impacted by debris from derelict and abandoned vessels. I so appreciate your talking about setting the table and about how all the seafood there is the table being set when the tide is out for so much of the seafood that people rely on, not just for food security but also for cultural reasons. That's so important. I also love how you talked about your family spending time there.

I will move on, because I feel like you've given us a good perspective on that.

Can you provide some thoughts on how it might be better communicated to the nation what to do when a vessel is derelict and abandoned along the coast? What do you think? You talked about some of those questions that you had. Do you have any suggestions on how that can be improved so that there's clarity around the process when it does happen?

[Gordon Edwards]

I think the answers that Mr. Macedo and Chief Joe have given are excellent ideas to consider. The participation of our governance structures, like our chief and council, and the governance structures of the local communities and the federal DFO in general, and DND also.... We have two DND stations just across the bay from us. That is very important.

I appreciate hearing Mr. Macedo and Chief Joe talk about that working together. What can we do to sit down?

The community in general already knows that we can ask the Internet. The Internet is general and provides the federal Government of Canada, DFO and DND information on how you can register complaints, but face-to-face contact is always much more appreciated because of the familiarity that we need with whom we need to connect with.

I think the process of information provided through the Internet is good. That always needs to be investigated, because when we access this, say with DFO, we need to make sure what DND says, what RDN says or what the feds say. We're constantly having to research it even further. Direct communication is always the best way.

[Lisa Marie Barron, NDP, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

Huy ch q'u, Councillor Edwards.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, Ms. Barron.

We'll now go to Mr. Arnold for five minutes or less please.

[Mel Arnold, Conservative, North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Edwards, if you have 60 seconds before you have to run, I'd like to touch base a little on what you stated, and then get your take on what needs to be done.

You said, “Where do we go? Who do we connect with?” It sounds like there's little information readily available out there as to how a community or anyone should react should they come across an abandoned or derelict vessel, or if one is abandoned in their territory.

Could you state what's missing, in your opinion?

[Gordon Edwards]

I think we do what we can as governance structures. I'm talking about our governance structure of chief and council. We do what we can to connect with the community, with our members, to provide the access necessary.

Federally, provincially and locally, there are processes always made available for people to access, but I think that when it comes to needing to sit down and meet the faces, for instance.... This is totally another issue, of course, but there's always lots of dialogue with DFO when it comes to needing to develop a process or create a program or whatever on fish stocks. When it comes to derelict boats, a lot of our community members just say, “What do we do?”

We had one community member, actually about three maybe, who just jumped on the boat, put fuel in the engine, rode it around and used it for fishing. We do what we can with the abilities that we have locally.

Chief Joe mentioned earlier—I'm sorry. Mr. Macedo, it might have been you. I cannot recall—that it's always nice to be able to have some kind of a local education program just focusing on derelict, abandoned boats and the contamination that can happen with people releasing...I don't know what they call their bathrooms on boats...hubs or hugs or whatever. I can't think what it is right now—

[Mel Arnold, Conservative, North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC]

Thank you.

My time is really limited, and thank you for staying a little longer than your predicted departure time.

Chief Joe, you mentioned that the number of docks in the area has limited your band's access to the foreshore. Can you just briefly elaborate on how much of the foreshore has been taken up by docks, and also, how many abandoned vessels do you have in your territory? Do you think that the inventory created by DFO is accurate based on what you see in your area?

[Chief Lenora Joe]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

In the dock management plan, we are working on doing an assessment and evaluation on the docks in our swiya. There are over 500 docks that we're trying to look at to ensure that they are up to the standard that we have created, which they have to abide by to the standard. Now we're going out and doing assessments on all the docks to see who needs to upgrade, and we're giving them time.

There's a whole process that's been put in place, and it's been quite a long time to develop this process with the province to ensure the residents in our swiya are able to adhere to it and are able to upgrade their docks. Of course, we had a lot of resistance, and we still have some resistance. Again, it's about the environment and about ensuring that we have the restoration of that wildlife under the water to restore that.

[Mel Arnold, Conservative, North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC]

Can you give me an idea of how many wrecked and abandoned vessels there are in your area? Would you think that the DFO estimate—

[Chief Lenora Joe]

I think there are 50.

[Mel Arnold, Conservative, North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC]

Are there 50 in your area alone?

[Chief Lenora Joe]

Yes, and I do note that I was reviewing some documentation, and I found that in 2018, Canada gave the District of Sechelt, our neighbours, $80,000 to do an assessment on the derelict boats. When I asked them what the result of that was and if they came up with a plan on how to address it, they said no. They just did the assessment and sent the information, so I don't know where that went.

[Mel Arnold, Conservative, North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC]

Okay.

I think I'm out of time.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

You have about one second left.

[Mel Arnold, Conservative, North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC]

That's pretty good.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

We'll now go to Mr. Hardie for five minutes or less.

[Ken Hardie, Liberal, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

I'll take Mel's second, then, and use it.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Ken Hardie, Liberal, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

Chief Joe, to your knowledge, does your community have municipal status? Do you have the same powers as a municipality?

[Chief Lenora Joe]

We do.

[Chief Lenora Joe]

Okay.

There's some very good information we received from the Cadboro Bay Dead Boats Society. You would have quite a bit of authority on the shoreline, even into the water, because the British Columbia government owns all of that territory. That might be worth looking into, because then you would have the opportunity to create bylaws and tighten up the system. It's worth a look.

Do you have any idea how much funding you received for that guardian program you mentioned, before it was cancelled?